Police Officers Say, “Walk a Mile in Our Shoes.”

Phoenix civil rights activist Rev. Jarrett Maupin and a Fox news reporter go through some standard police use of force scenarios and learn some things about what we as cops face everyday. It strongly affected their preconceptions. “We want his badge, we want his gun, we want his job!” Rev. Maupin had chanted earlier at a protest for a police shooting in Phoenix.

After this training session with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, Rev. Maupin said, “I didn’t understand how important compliance was, but after going through this, yeah, my attitude has changed.” During the Simunition training, both Maupin and the reporter shot an aggressive unarmed man approaching them in one of the scenarios. “People need to comply with the orders of law enforcement officers for their own sake,” the reverend concluded.

I believe that if citizens had some insight into how law enforcement approaches these problems, they would be able to more objectively assess how their local police perform under these stresses.